Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer casually revealed that the Zune multimedia platform will eventually be brought to the company's Window's Mobile software, further supporting earlier claims that Redmond would never enter the cellphone hardware business. At the end of an interview with the UK's CIO magazine (an IDF property), Bill Gates' notoriously-opinionated successor concluded his response to a question about the motive behind developing the iPod/iTunes rival by stating that "the Zune software will also be ported to and be more important not just with the hardware but on the PC, on Windows Mobile devices, etc." Indeed, ever since Apple launched its popular iPhone, there has been speculation that Microsoft would develop its own media-centric smartphone, but recent comments by the company in the wake of Google's Android launch suggest that it is content providing just the operating system to a growing ecosystem of handset manufacturing partners.

[Via The Inquirer, image courtesy of Inside Microsoft]